Saturday, November 06, 2010

Two time Oscar nominated actress Jill Clayburgh died yesterday after a long long struggle with leukemia. She was 66 years old.

Clayburgh in Starting Over (1979) and Running With Scissors (2006)

Younger moviegoers may remember her as the rundown matriarch of that chaotic impossibly neurotic brood in Running With Scissors (2006) or the well heeled matriarch in television's Dirty Sexy Money. (2007-2009). Those were both part of a mini Clayburgh revival in the Aughts which was kicked off by two Broadway runs in Naked Girl on the Appalachian Way (2005) and the revival of Barefoot in the Park (2006).

But Clayburgh's heyday was unquestionably in the late 1970s, when she became something like the screen embodiment of Modern Liberated Woman. Clayburgh will always be connected in cultural history to her zeitgeist moment in 1978 when she starred in Paul Mazurky's frisky Best Picture nominee An Unmarried Woman. Inthe film her husband suddenlyleaves her for a younger woman and she starts dating again, becoming a sexually liberated woman as a single mother with the help of randy virile Alan Bates. Clayburgh was a possible winner, too, but Jane Fonda (who she had bested at Cannes tying with Isabelle Huppert for Violette), shared the campaign advantage of headlining a Best Picture nominee with a hot topic (Vietnam); Fonda won.

Clayburgh's second consecutive Oscar nomination can almost be seen a sequel, a bit of afterglow from her first. She's playing two different characters and the second film is more of a comedy but in the first her divorce means she's Starting Over and in the second it's Burt Reynolds's turn. Clayburgh is the new woman in his life.

My favorite moment from An Unmarried Woman

Though Clayburgh will remain An Unmarried Woman in the historical imagination she was actually A Married Woman. She married the playwright and screenwriter David Rabe exactly one year and three days after An Unmarried Woman was released. How about that? (Does anyone know if the newlyweds attended the Oscars in April 1979? Inside Oscar doesn't say.) Our condolences go out to Rabe and their three children this morning.*

I find in reference to her long time marriage this quote from PEOPLE.com: 'She and Rabe married in 1978. When asked why, Clayburgh told PEOPLE: "So people would stop asking me about my personal life. If you're married, they just assume you're happy."'

Heaven needed a talented, beautiful, shining beacon of hope such as she to deliver a message of faith and hope to mankind so beautiful, unending, and full of love that all the world would fall in awe of its unlimited grasp upon their souls. The breath of wonder and existence fills us all, and Jill, being the timeless example of pious serene beauty that she is, has finally become part of that for all eternity, taking a real place among the stars and shining her inimitable grace and humor upon us.

What a wonderful actress - Loved her in "Starting Over", as well - she was so quirky and loveable in it. "An Unmarried Woman" is a fantastic movie and she is fantastic in it.

Tiny correction - the play was called "Naked Girl on the Apian Way" - I was fortunate enough to see her in it, and got a chance to chat with her a little bit after the play. She was kind and lovely, and I will always remember that day.